If you are a copyright owner and believe that your copyrighted works have been used in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, here is our DMCA Notice.
I was first exposed to Senegalese popular music in the early part of the decade hanging out in Madrid, Spain. Between experiencing high energy Mbalax dancing in a local club, seeing Youssou N'Dour perform outside of the Palacio Real, and hearing the beautifully melodic music and raps of Hip Hop groups like Positive Black Soul and Pee Frois, I became hooked on the country's diverse sounds.
Around that time, the rap group Bideew Bou Bess came to my attention via a compilation of Senegalese Hip Hop called Da Hop. I recently discovered them again after visiting Harlem's Little Senegal and buying a bootleg of Rap Galsene containing this amazing guitar driven beautifully sung tune:
Today, after a couple trips to Senegal, Dakar has become one of my favorite cities. The New York times recently did a feature on the diverse music scene there. It was a introductory look at the city's rich contemporary nightlife and music culture. Hopefully through more exposure to Dakar's music, increased interest will serve as motivation for people to explore this culturally rich and welcoming country.
2009, musically speaking, seemed like a year tinged with melancholy and loneliness. Perhaps my favorite individual song was Majutsu No Niwa's "Grand Okeanos," (At the End of Summer, Musik Atlach) one to cleave a canyon-size Galaxie 500-like hole where your heart once was. I missed Overhang Party for like five minutes.
Speaking of loneliness, my other favorite single of the year was rap hit, "Day N Nite" by Kid Cudi. The song tweaked rap cliches into a burbling brook of paranoia for "lonely loners." You can just imagine the spaced out protagonist sitting at a computer screen making beats, way too late/way too early. My third favorite "single" is the 40-minute drone collab between J. Spaceman and Matthew Shipp, "Inner," on--of course--SpaceShipp (Treader). These two merge styles and substance sweetly at the drone with Shipp on celeste and squeezebox. More please.
Speaking of lonely drones, three ladies impressed me with their one woman sound sculptures: Noveller (Red Rainbow, No Fun), HNY (some tapes), and Julianna Barwick (Florine, self-released). It's natural to lump these remarkable women together as I just did, but they're three completely unique takes on the layering of ethereal sounds, with enough melody to hook you.
I listened to a lot of synth-based music in 2009, a music made by people huddling over weary packs of machines. My obsession with Emeralds (What Happened, No Fun) and Emeralds side projects (Lilypad, Steve Hauschildt, Outer Space, Skyramps, Mark McGuire, etc.) reached an apex, and speaking of Mark McGuire, his many solo guitar forays were constant sources of droning pleasure in 2009 (Dream Team, A Pocket Full of Rain, Tidings II, Losing Sleep). My favorite synth-based jammer, though, was Pulse Emitter's Meditative Music 3 (Pulse Emitter), a lulling slow morphing synth adventure of sonic wallpaper.
There was a jangle heard loud in 2009, starting with (finally) reissues of the first two Feelies albums, Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth (Bar None). Totally essential records to anyone who has ever stepped foot in New Jersey or really stepped foot anywhere ever for that matter. New Jersey's Real Estate (Woodsist) put out my favorite pop record, a perfect sonic metaphor for those lazy shore summers when days are long and sunburnt. The Mantles (Siltbreeze) and Sonny and the Sunsets (Soft Abuse) brought me similar pleasure mixed with West Coast psych. "Death Cream" from the latter ending the year on top of the song pile.
Vybz Kartel + Spice - "Romping
Shop": The five or
six times a day it was played on the radio I could picture what it's going to
be like when this is the first song that plays at my wedding.
This is a two-minute summary of Alain Resnais' and Alain Robbe-Grillet's enigmatic arthouse classic L'Année dernière à Marienbad. In contrast to the original, this work by Vanya Schroeder is in color, and the actors are toys. It is nearly perfect, only the creepy organ music is missing.
Years ago I saw a South American actor—whose name I don't recall—on a talk show. He was discussing the difficulties of learning English and he said that, to Spanish-speakers, English sounded like barking dogs. He even gave a fairly credible demonstration of a string of sounds with the sort of emphasis and tonality of English-language phrasing. But nothing beats my new crush, the Italian-popstar-I'd-never-heard-of Adriano Celentano and his song that I think is called "Prisencolinen Sinaincuisol." In 1972 Celentano made up a language in order to write a song that sounded like plausible English. He sings it with such conviction! I love this video, but watching it makes me sad that I'm not living in Italy in 1972.
UPDATE: MANY OF THESE LINKS ARE DEAD, BUT MANY NEW ITEMS HAVE ALSO BEEN ADDED. FOLLOW A LINK AND THEN HIT THE 'CHRiSTMAS ARCHIVE' TAB THAT YOU WiLL SEE ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE SITE CLASSIC TELEVISION SHOWBIZ.
From the earliest days of television and diving into the classics of the 50s, 60s and 70s and then making you retch with a handful of garbage from the 80s, this is the largest list of old Christmas related television you'll ever find and they're listed in chronological order. I won't be updating this post in the next five days, so if you want to enjoy a lot more to come, including four Christmas episodes of Bewitched, Three Christmas episodes of Maude, two Christmas episodes of Richard Dawson's Family Feud and a ton more, then follow the Classic Television Showbiz Twitter feed. Have fun and best of luck avoiding those crazy relatives.
Woods - Sunlit 7" (Captured Tracks) listen Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy (Matador) listen The Mantles - Don't Lie 7" (Mt St Mtn) listen Real Estate - Self-Titled (Woodsist) listen Sonny & the Sunsets - Tomorrow is Alright (Soft Abuse) listen Dum Dum Girls - Self Titled (Captured Tracks) listen Ganglians - Monster Head Room (Woodsist) listen Brilliant Colors - Introducing (Slumberland) listen Wet Hair - Dream (Release the Bats) listen Fungi Girls - Seafaring Pyramids (Play Pinball) listen
Louder sounds:
Thee Oh Sees - Help (In The Red) listen Ty Segall - Lemons (Goner) listen Golden Triangle - Self-Titled (Mexican Summer) listen Blues Control - Local Flavor (Siltbreeze) listen Tyvek - Self-Titled (Siltbreeze) listen Talk Normal - Sugarland (Rare Book Room) listen Zola Jesus - Tsar Bomba (Troubleman Unlimited) listen
1. LifewithTamar - So 10 years ago I asked the then volunteer director at WFMU out for a drink and she said yes (after several earlier attempts of which the majority were met with indifference; not even a sneer, obvious disgust, or a why are you talking to me look). The next week I was looking forward to our second date when Hurricane Floyd hit putting the kibosh on that idea. (I did get to watch one of my roomates at the time, a proper English gentleman, stand out in the middle of the road with an umbrella where a manhole cover had flown out of its manhole due to the extreme flooding, warning oncoming cars.) So two weeks later we went on our second date and it just kept going and here we are. And I can't imagine another here where we'd rather be are. Case in point: This year she spotted an insect mask made of spoons while we were walking through the town of Onancock. I was at the time speaking to the Cosmic Cowboy so I almost missed what became a very important moment of acquisition. But my better half knew me the moment she saw it. She actually has a chance of co-opting a higher percentage at this point; my better two thirds, perhaps?
2. Henry Cow - The Road: Volumes 1-10 (ReR) - This is a nice little
monument to a group that deserves a permanent place in this listener's
ear. For about half the year I've listened to this off and on; first.
taking the listen-to-it-one-CD-a-night for a week and a half (there's
also a DVD) bath, and then! intermittently afterwards. Upon first
listen I noticed that each recording was worthwhile but a few (Volumes
1: Beginnings and 4 & 5: Trondheim) stood out as being kind of
revelatory in the way that they placed them in English music at their
time of initial attempt and verified the sound of theirs I find the
most intriguing (, respectively). But the more I listen, the more I
enjoy because these are bits and pieces forming a cohesive whole with room for expansion (who doesn't like a whole with room for expansion?).
3. Cartoon History of the Modern World, Part 2 - Larry Gonick (Harper)
- I'll admit that I grumbled to myself that this doesn't quite live up
to the previous volumes after first read; the last century, which could
have a book to itself, goes by rather quickly. But then I read an
interview with
Mr. Gonick that explained the logic and his reasoning makes perfect
sense (our historic vicinity to a big event influences our view of its
importance). And that's the kind of book that this is. It makes perfect
sense that all of Larry Gonick's cartoon guides become part of the
curricula in schools. They are a great overview of history and science,
and the books listed in the back in the bibliography are fodder for
students to pursue personal projects based on interest and curiosity:
the heart and lungs of passion. I look forward to his guide to calculus
(anyone who can actually get me to write those words has accomplished
something that seems impossible).
4. Lucky Dragons - The Stone - Saturday, May 9 - This year I
avoided/missed live music for the most part. However, I did catch a few
shows and this one in particular stands out as being the most
surprising show that I've seen in awhile (and surprise is a feeling
that I bow to). While I enjoy their records, I did not know how
important audience participation is to their performance. At various
points during the show members of the audience were handed electric
bean pods, rocks to pass through theremins, and live electric circuits
of some sort that allowed audience members to touch and grab arms of
the circuit bearers thereby altering the sounds the musicians were
playing with. The kind of ritual I wouldn't mind participating in once a year or so.
Tonight, the leading lights of the worldwide chip music movement are convening at Brooklyn's Bell House for the fourth-annual Blip Festival. And as you may have heard, WFMU will be webcasting all 3 days' worth of pixelated madness LIVE on a separate super-special blip stream, beginning at 8pm ET tonight!
The webcast is hosted by Trent of WFMU's Sound and Safe, who'll be DJ-ing between sets and talking with Blip Festival organizers, performers, & attendees throughout. Trent hosted a Blip Fest Warm-Up radio show on Monday night -- check out the playlist & archive here for live performances from
Je Deviens DJ En Trois Jour and Patric Catani, plus special guests C-Men and Peter Swimm.
Peter Swimm runs the True Chip Till Death blog, and curates weekly highlights from the chip music world on the Free Music Archive. Earlier this week, he posted a mix featuring some of the artists who'll be performing at this year's festival. Check it out after the jump!
Tony Coulter here, with a second post from my new digs in Portland, Oregon. I should say right off the bat that if I write about Portland, my intent is not to promote the place as the perfect spot for a hipster jamboree. I happen to have just moved here, so, naturally, Portland's on my mind; if I had moved to Sandpoint, Idaho, I'd be writing about Sandpoint, Idaho. In fact, to prove it, I'll just go ahead and throw in two things Idahoan. After all, Idaho and Oregon are neighbors, aren't they?
All of the above have actually already been played on FMU -- so you can check them out by trolling archives of yore. What I decided to do instead was to highlight some LPs from Oregon and Idaho that I've discovered since moving here four months ago. These are things I would have played on my FMU show if I were still on the air. I will also show you pictures from a high school yearbook I found in a junk shop, and from a book put out by a Berkeley dentist.
Don't curse the silence! Let the Miner light up your iMenorah with the following incandescent audibles:
(1) Johnny Cash played Folsom (and San Quentin) and Eddie Palmieri rocked Sing Sing, but if you're looking to fill out that "Recorded Behind Bars" section of your record collection, it'd be a crime to overlook Jimmy McGriff's crackling '72 session from Chicago's Cook County lockup. ••• (2) "Don't be frightened, Mr. Gould is here," is how Lenny Bernstein introduced Glenn Gould's "highly unorthodox" interpretation of a Brahms concerto before a Carnegie Hall collaboration in '62. (Hear the audio of his intro.) Lucky for us, the lovable loons paired up that same year to thrash about some Beethoven and Bach for a Columbia recording session. ••• (3) The WILD in "N.Y. Wild Guitars" is all about Wild Jimmy Spruill, who appears up and down the track list on this massive collection. (Visit the Hound's brilliant blog for a treatise on Jimmy, which contains a bevy of MP3s, including the unreleased "Raisin' Hell." ••• (4) While salsa left behind the dusty streets of San Juan and Spanish Harlem for high-class ballrooms, some maestros, like Rafael Cortijo, kept it earthy by fusing Afro-Cuban dance music with the bombas y plenas of Puerto Rico's older folk traditions. ••• (5) For Bristol residents in the mid-'70s, a hot night out dancing to 17th-century English folk ditties would invariably have been serenaded by Dr. Bowser's Brown Bowel Oil Band. (Don't ask.) ••• (6) Following the blockbuster success of Superfly, Curtis Mayfield produced the soundtrack to Short Eyes, the film version of an award-winning play about the murder of a pedophile in jail. (The play was written by Miguel Piñero, who was one of the founders of the famed Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Piñero had earlier done some time in prison and was at Sing Sing in '72, where he almost certainly was in the audience for Eddie Palmieri's live recording session there.)
[Don't forget to send in selections of your favorite downloads from the past year of Mining the Audio Motherlode. (To see all 46 volumes in one long continuous post, go here.) Either e-mail me your lists of faves or just leave them in the comments below and I will compile them into a Readers' Choice Best of 2009 list. On December 30, I will post your Top Five selections along with a Top Five from the home office.]
Hey, did you know you can buy a Colt .45 Conway Twitty Tribute Pistol if you happen to have an extra two grand lying around?
Hell, if you collect firearms you should probably go ahead and make the purchase and put it right next to your George Jones Tribute Rifle. Both these firearms come from a Second Amendment-loving outfit known as America Remembers, headquartered in Ashland, Virginia. Poking around their website, I see their tributes go far beyond Conway Twitty and George Jones. They've also issued scores of other firearms commemorating figures such as Elvis, Melvin Purvis, John Dillinger, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, the Navajo Code Talkers, and even Travis Tritt!
If you'd prefer to remember Conway Twitty for his talents as a singer and songwriter, here are a few MP3s to help you out. All were written by Twitty, with the exception of Pop A Top, which was composed by Nat Stuckey.
- "A Glorious Dawn" - Carl Sagan feat. Stephen Hawking. Maybe worth a chuckle or two, and a fist-bump for cleverness, John Boswell's AutoTuned Sagan delivers easily my hook of the year. That the tune lands in the existential sci-fi angst/abstraction sweet spot, well, that's just cosmic gravy:
- America: A History in Verse by Edward Sanders (Blake Route Press). An omnibus CD containing the first five (of nine) volumes of the Fugs' co-founder's' sweeping project, which reads like a warmer and more playful version of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
- Northern Songs - Greg Davis and Chris Weisman (Autumn). A sympathetic mix of Davis's out-there field recordings, drones, and generally ethereal sensibility plus Weisman's deep grasp of Beatlemusik (with a major homespun Vermont DIY vibe). Both put out other great albums this year, too, especially Weisman's Tape Walk (on Davis's Autumn Records) and Davis's pretty much perfect live disc, Midpoint.
- Buddha Machine 2.0 (FM3). The pitch control makes all the difference, for synching with the drone in LaMonte Young's Dream House (to carry the vibe home) or the hum of passing traffic or the pitch of the rain... Like beat matching, but driftier.
- All Tomorrow's Parties. Though the gold-spangled belt I scored at the gift shop (and which kept my pants up all weekend) disintegrated during the Flaming Lips' closing set, ATP was all wowza, no filler. Mostly, I will remember the 11-hour Oneida jam, a rusty merry-go-round singing like a saw, and a signed poster of Lenny Schultz, the Bionic Chicken.
- "Stillness Is The Move" (Domino) + Dirty Projectors' general continued existence. Finally, some indie pop that's as weird and catchy and non-verse/chorus/strummy as what's on, uh, the other parts of the radio. (See also the Solange Knowles version of "Stillness.")
- "Bdaa!!!" 7-inch - Los Peyotes (Dirty Water). Wasn't sure if this was a new song or old (new, turns out), but it's just exactly stupid as the cover suggests. And
- Ducktails & Real Estate, a half-dozen cassettes, CD-Rs, and 7-inches. Boards of Canada meets lulling surf-vibes, in the case of the former. Hints of that plus actual tunes in the latter. Sort of what I've been waiting for, turns out.
- Popular Songs - Yo La Tengo (Matador).
- The Jazz Loft Project by Sam Stephenson (Knopf). An insane sifting of the recordings and photographs made by W. Eugene Smith at the Sixth Avenue loft he occupied in the '50s and '60s in the form of a magnificent 268-page art book.. Equally stunning scholarship, beauty, and history.
Check out other WFMU staffers' year end lists here.
Last week, the Los Angeles-based, New Zealand-bred improv duo of Andrew Scott and Helga Fassonaki graced my program with a donated disc of ultra-rarities and collaborations, both released and to-be released, though all in extremely limited editions. Métal Rouge's music lent an air of bright, feathery sophistication to what can often be our dark, dungeony Castle broadcasts. These pieces come from above, like psychedelic aerial attacks, and though there's lots of space, there's also a lot of percussive activity and general tonal collision. So enjoy, and be prepared to view the clouds from a different angle. Below is the entire disc for download and/or in-browser listening, including two tracks that did not air in the broadcast last Wednesday. This will also be available in short order on our Free Music Archive, where you can also visit the My Castle of Quiet curator page.
Individual track information below written by Andrew Scott. Photo by Ged Gangras.
Will eventually be released as one side of a split 10” lathe cut record on the New Zealand label Root Don Lonie For Cash with one of Clayton Noone’s many projects. Will be in an edition of around 30. I’ll be shocked if any copies even make it out of New Zealand.
Nest is Andrew Scott (from Métal Rouge) and Nigel Wright. This is taken from their self-titled double LP lathe cut, which came out on New Zealand’s CMR imprint this year in an edition of 33.
This is the trio formation of Métal Rouge: Andrew Scott, Helga Fassonaki and Caitlin Mitchell. From the recently released Ephemeroptera 5 CDr on Seymour Records.
Recently completed collaboration with San Antonio-based one-man black metal maven Husere Grav for one his forthcoming releases, which is I believe an album of collaborations.
Un Ciego is Andrew from Métal Rouge solo. This is an alternate mix of the 2nd side of a forthcoming lathe cut 7” on New Zealands CMR imprint in an edition of 30.
My musical year in a nutshell (in no particular order):
Moniek Darge - Soundies (KYE) Lonesummer/Marsh - split cassette (Starlight Temple Society) Edan - Echo Party (Traffic) Bill Orcutt - A New Way To Pay Old Debts (Palilalia) Tropa Macaca - Sansacao Do Principio (Siltbreeze) Times New Viking - Born Again Revisited (Matador) Rusted Shut - Dead (Load) Chopstick - Forgiveness Please (Love Earth Music) Spill - Where You Aren't (Blackest Rainbow) Hochman & Hopkins - Bent Broom Rehearsal Tapes (Near Tapes) Blues Control - Local Flavor (Siltbreeze) Liturgy - Renihilation (20 Buck Spin) Purling Hiss (pic right) - Purling Hiss (Archive) Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans (Sub Pop) William Basinski - 98982 (2062) Mayyors - Deads 12" (Hurling Man) Madalyn Merkey (pic right) - Goddess of the Horizon (Irmavep Tapes) David Sylvian - Manafon (Samadhisound) Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy (Matador) Puffy Areolas - Lutzko Lives 7" (Columbus Discount) Sonny & the Sunsets - Death Cream 7" (Soft Abuse) Warm Climate - Edible Houses cassette (Stunned) Sissy Spacek - Fortune 7" (Gilgongo)
Reissues/Reduxes: Bondage-T - Les Bouchers de Verdun 7" (Memoire Neuv) Sun Ra - R&B Reissues (Norton) Crash Course In Science -s/t (Vinyl On Demand) The Ex - 30 (Ex) Robert Wyatt - Radio Experiment Rome 1981 (Rai Trade) Pekka Streng - Kesamaa (Love) Various - Dirty French Psychedelics (Discograph) 39 Clocks - reissues on DeStijl, Bureau B
Best live show by oldsters (old guy tie) The Axemen @ Union Pool, Throbbing Gristle @ Le Poisson Rouge, Neil Young @ Primavera
Had a mighty good time at WFMU Fest Oct 1-3, and our SXSW show w/Aquarius in March. And a big shout to all the bands that stopped by the show this year: TV Ghost, Airway, Gnaw, the Axemen, Graveyards, Kurt Vile & the Violators, Billy Bao, Pink Noise, Total Abuse, Afterparty, Group Doueh (from a remote in Paris we did), the Necks, Puffy Areolas, Pulse Emitter, Skullflower, Prince Rama of Ayodhya. A fine year ideed for sounds.
Check out other WFMU staffers' year end lists here.
Hopefully will find his way to the studio in 2010:
Mastodon - Crack the Skye
Kylesa - Static Tensions
Saviours - Accelerated Living
Orcustus - Orcustus
Shrinebuilder - Shrinebuilder
Baroness - Blue Record
16 - Bridges To Burn
Subarachnoid Space - 8 Bells
Kreator - Hordes of Chaos
Wolves In the Throne Room - Black Cascade
PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS:
Trip to Alaska, and thus making my list of visits to all 50 states in the US - COMPLETE!
Touring more than I have in any year so far - sorry summer schedule fans, but it had to be done!
More favs below...and check out all the WFMU DJs top 10 lists of 2009 here.